Sunday, May 10 2020

Good afternoon, everyone. Today I extend you a happy Sunday, and a
happy Mother’s day. I hope you all remembered to do something nice
for the mother in your life.

Rodney and I are taking it easy this morning. The frigid, drizzly
rain means we can hang out on the couch and take in some Paw Patrol
without the guilt of wasting beautiful weather. And with a Dutch Baby
brunch still sitting in our stomachs, we have at least another hour
before we need to start thinking about lunch.

I got kind of distracted this morning. Yesterday I wrapped up a
project that regularly synchronizes our combined family photos to the
family computer. Wanting to test the new mechanism out, I opened up
Google Photos to add a few pictures to the album, but then of course
that led me down a rabbit hole of nostalgia. Spring break in college,
getting engaged to Marissa, living as a care free married couple in
Rockford with only a young, well-behaved Ollie to worry about. We had
some good times.

Sip. Marissa and I had kind of a rough day yesterday. She rolled
out of bed a little more tired than usual. “Miles was hard last
night,” she reported. “He’s still eating, but the feeding sessions
take about an hour and a half.” And between catching up on sleep,
keeping Rodney occupied, catching up on laundry, and putting things
away around the house, our precious Saturday morning slipped away with
a whimper.

“So Rodney needs a shower still, we’re about an hour late for quiet
time, and he just finished his ‘special gatorate’, so he’ll probably
have a big poop soon,” I said, sighing into my hands. Marissa sat at
the table beside me, wearily picking at a bowl of lunch leftovers
while holding Miles with her other arm.

“Man, it’s so nice outside,” I said looking up at the window. “I feel
kind of bad that Rodney hasn’t had any outside time. I just feel like
the whole morning got away from us.”

I caught up on the day while Rodney slept. About two hours later, I
gave him a quick shower, and the two of us made our way downstairs to
start on dinner. I held Rodney’s attention for as long as I could,
cooking some rice, cutting some vegetables, and peeling shrimp for
dinner.

“I’m a little burnt out,” said Marissa sauntering into the kitchen.

“Do you want to go for a walk or something?” I suggested, wiping off
Rodney’s hands at the sink. “You can just go by yourself with the
dogs - it might be kind of nice to get some alone time.”

“That does sound nice,” said Marissa. “It’s been a tough day. It
feels like all I’ve done today is nurse Miles.”

Marissa took the dogs for a walk, and I practically shoved Rodney
outside to play in the yard while the sun was still up. After setting
up all the ingredients for fried rice, I excitedly retrieved the metal
bowl of sourdough bread from the oven and peeked underneath the
tinfoil. The raw dough smelled fragrant and fruity, happily gurgling
underneath a puffy, pliable skin. I rubbed my hands together with
anticipation before turning on the oven.

The oven clicked three times, then went out with a puff. “Oh you
gotta be kidding me - son of a…” I muttered gruffly to myself
climbing down on my knees to peer inside. I removed the pizza stone,
and the grates, angrily flinging them behind me onto the floor. I
tried the button again - click, click, click, then silence. I
clenched my fist and took a few deep breaths.

Marissa returned from her walk, and I greeted her at the door with my
frustration. “I’m so sick of this thing,” I said. “I tried the
warming drawer trick that the guy showed me, but it’s not working. I
emptied the whole thing out. It’s still not heating up.”

“How long has it been running?” asked Marissa.

“Just a few minutes. I only wanted to warm it up so the bread could
finish proofing,” I anxiously replied.

“Well if it’s not working, I don’t want to run the oven. What if it’s
filling with gas or something?” answered Marissa.

“But if I don’t run it, how do we know if it’s really broken?” I
replied. “Maybe it just takes a while sometimes. Maybe it’s always
done this and we just didn’t notice it. Maybe there’s some small
workaround we can do…”

“We shouldn’t mess with it,” said Marissa sternly. “We’ll call the
guy out again and just tell them that it doesn’t work sometimes. It’s
their job, they’ll figure it out.”

“Seriously?” I said, raising my voice. “So we’re going to invite the
guy back and just say it doesn’t work sometimes? He’s going to
laugh at us. It’s not like he’s going to plug it into a computer and
magically find the problem - “

“I don’t know! He might! I don’t know anything about ovens and I
would rather you spend your effort doing something else.” Marissa
stormed out of the kitchen. I flung a rubber spatula into the sink in
frustration. I took a few minutes to compose myself.

“I’m sorry I lost my temper,” I said to Marissa standing in the living
room. “I need to tell you how I’m feeling. Obviously, I’m feeling a
little ripped off - like I rolled over and let that guy take our money
without actually doing anything. I feel trapped - it’s like the oven
is not broken enough to fix it or justify getting a new one, but it
doesn’t work well enough to be confident in it. And with how much
planning we put into meals these days, that’s frustrating to me.”

Marissa nodded. “It sucks,” she said quietly. “But I understand how
you feel.”

We put Rodney to bed, and after getting Miles into a fresh onsie and
putting him down for a nap, we met on the back porch for some beer and
sourdough bread. The oven did eventually turn on, and the bread
turned out wonderfully.

“This was a rough day,” said Marissa with tears welling up in her
eyes. “And my walk with the dogs wasn’t even that good. I lost my
patience with them, and it was like I couldn’t get out of ‘dog
trainer’ mode.”

I nodded and took a sip of beer. “And you want to prove to yourself
that you can handle a new baby without cutting corners on anything
else, right?” Marissa nodded, and I continued. “I feel the same - I
was disappointed in myself that I lost my temper with the oven and got
a little too fixated.”

“So what’s your plan? With the oven?” asked Marissa.

“Well, since we still don’t know how broken it is, I guess we’ll just
have to keep testing it out by making bread every night,” I laughed.

“Right,” said Marissa. “It’s just data - we need more data points,”
she laughed with a mouthful of bread. “Let’s do this - how about we
talk about today’s highs.”

I smiled. “Great idea - you go first.”

“I liked playing outside with Rodney today,” she said.

“Oh thanks for doing that,” I interrupted. “I felt guilty about
keeping him cooped up this morning.”

“We had a good time,” laughed Marissa. “We played baseball in the
backyard. How about you?”

“I got some good me-time in,” I said. “It was fun working on our
family photos. And the bread turned out amazing,” I said. I looked
up and patted Marissa on the hand. “Hang in there, buddy. We’ll
figure things out, and try again tomorrow. We don’t have anything to
prove.”